Fishbowl
by Hermonthis
Summary: Zhao, Yue - Zhao discovers that there are worse things than death. Such as being pooped by the Ocean Spirit. Oh well, the immortal life goes on.


This baby right here is my Atla crackotp, 'tis all.**  
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**FISHBOWL**

One of the last things that Zhao remembered from his mortal life was fighting the exiled Prince Zuko before a large hand scooped him from the streets of the Northern Water Tribe and into the air. He remembered his feet lifting from the ground and something wet and cold wrapping itself around his torso. Zuko had a look on his face that he couldn't forget, the boy's eyes grew wide and he held out his hand to save him but he declined. There was no honour and only shame in his actions, it would not do for someone like he who was personally promoted by the Fire Lord himself.

Then down, down, down he went into the sea. Whoever said that water was blue was a liar. He was surrounded in black water, blacker than charcoal and colder than he had ever known. Thoughts ran through his mind and Zhao could see his life in small segments. The time he joined the army, his first sideburns, his first promotion, discovering the abandoned library and meeting the royal family.

A smile graced his lips as a jetstream of air bubbles escaped his lips. There were few regrets in his life and now wasn't the time to have them. There was just one thing he wished for but knew that it would never be granted. A large air bubble emerged from his mouth and Zhao closed his eyes for the last time.

"Damn. I'm too sexy to die."

* * *

Swoosh. Plop. Swoosh.

Squish.

A rather large blob of sparky blue goop dropped on the floor. It moved and squirmed and the thing trapped inside was trying to find a way out. Stretching the yolk-like membrane to a thin layer, Zhao tore a hole and the walls of his prison parted away easily, releasing him from its womb.

Gingerly stepping out of the blue puddle he attempted to remove the remaining bits of membrane upon his clothes by attempting to burn them off. Rubbing his hands together Zhao commanded the fire inside him to emerge and cleanse himself. But no fire came. The Admiral's quick thinking sprouted into action.

_I can't firebend._

After this sudden realization, his eyes scanned the perimeter and made some calculations to what his current situation was. One word came to his mind - bleak. He was surrounded in grey mist and that was all that he could see. The sky, if one could call it that, was the same colour as the horizon all around him and the ground underneath his feet was as smooth as the halls of the royal palace. It was the same colour of grey but just a tad darker. Zhao decided to take this as a good sign, at least he knew he wasn't upside down.

His focus turned back on himself again and with his lack of firebending, wiped off the blue stuff as best as he could. Zhao's eyebrows lowered in thought. He remembered dying and being pulled into the ocean by the Large Spirit of Watery Retribution before landing in this place. But how did he get here? Considering that he was encased in the same sparky blue material that the monster consisted off, two choices ran through his mind.

Either the spirit was defeated in some way (spent energy perhaps?) and had melted into eventual nothingness leaving him abandoned in the mist or the spirit had eaten him alive after diving into the ocean waters and the blue goop that had encased him previously was actually Spirit Shit and my gods he better not smell like dung!

Zhao raised both his arms and sniffed his armpits just to make sure. Okay! No worries there, he smelled fresh and clean. Unusual, considering he had fought Zuko previous to dying. Maybe this was how mortals entered the Spirit World, all tidied up for the afterlife. But then again, not everyone was popped out from a sea monster in a land of monochromatic mist.

An idea came to mind. Surely the mist can't go on forever. If this was a 'place' then there had to be boundaries of some sort, and boundaries usually meant walls and where there were walls were doors. _Yes!_

Zhao congradulated himself on his plan, all he had to do now was to keep on walking until he hit a wall! He smirked at his genius, wasn't he the clever one!

Feeling much better about his predicament, the Admiral set his shoulders and strutted in what he hoped was the right direction. Humming a tune to himself, the strut became more of a jog and soon he fell into the familiar pattern of his morning military exercises.

"Hello?" a voice called out but it wasn't him. He stopped immediately, wondering if he heard correctly.

"Anybody here?"

Zhao did a little dance of internal joy. He wasn't alone in this godforsaken place of greyness! And to make things better, the voice definitely sounded female.

_Score._

He ran in the direction that the voice hailed from but it was difficult to see when everything around you looked the same. Glancing back Zhao noticed that the blue goop had disappeared and now he had no way to tell where he was going. Oh well, he wasn't going to miss it. He shouted back at the fog hoping the voice would answer.

"Over here!"

"Hello? Someone there?"

"Here!"

"Where?"

"Here!" He kept running.

"WHERE?!"

A frown graced his face, how was he supposed to give directions when he couldn't see himself? But his persistence won out in the end and soon a speck of colour glowed in the mist. He ran harder towards it and the spot of colour grew larger and larger and bluer and damn, he recognized who the other person was. It was that girl from the water tribe. Not _that_ one but the other one with the long white hair.

His feet slowed down to a walking pace when he finally reached her. She was wearing her nation's heavy fur robes and by the way her arms were crossed, she looked cold.

"Hi." She replied without even looking at him.

"Hi. Strange place. Do you know-" the girl hesitated and she sighed. "We're dead aren't we?"

"We're dead." Again the girl sighed. She still hadn't made eye contact and realized he was a firenation soldier. He could take quick advantage of this. "How did you get here?"

"Me? Oh, after the Moon Spirit died and everything went red I gave up my life to become her newest reincarnation. Dying was awful, I didn't want to go but I'm here now. This place doesn't look like the Spirit World to me, how did you get here?" One more sigh. Zhao made a mental note to tally up how many times she would do that.

_I was pooped out by your fishy partner._ "Don't really know." It was then that she made eye contact. Whoops.

"You!" The girl stuttered and took a step back recognizing the red fire nation uniform. Her pretty upper lip curled in disgust and she tiled her head back. There was no need for such incivilities, Zhao thought, a verbal comment would do just fine. But he couldn't help but smile at their ironic predicament; two enemies stuck in the same grey place. He grinned at her.

"Hi."

The look on her face was priceless. Her mouth dropped open and she pointed at his chest accusingly. "You!" His smile grew wider. Oho! Someone in the Spirit World _really_ didn't like him.

He listed the facts in his mind. Dead. Lost. Probably in Purgatory. No firebending. Watertribe girl with no direction and a predisposition to stare at people and repeat herself. But she was the new Moon Spirit and probably had a ticket out of here whereas he would most likely be headed towards the Special Hell.

Zhao pondered if it was possible for him to be reincarnated too. Better play nice to the pretty lady then. He bowed towards her.

"My name is Admiral Zhao of the fire nation. And you are-" The girl peered at him closely and lowered her head a small ways, returning the gesture.

"Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe." _Yue. Huh, her parents must have known something about her future then. I wonder what else they knew._ Something must have crossed Zhao's face for Yue's stare only hardened.

"You're the one who led the attack on my people, didn't you? I saw you grab the Moon Spirit from the pond. You put her in a bag and fried her like an Arctic Hen! You damned well killed me! Now I'll never see him again!" He could see the rage of righteousness swell up in the princess and with a dramatic bite of her lower lip, she twirled around and began walking in the other way. Zhao watched her from a distance with a bit of admiration in his eyes. She wouldn't get far in this mist but she did know how to make an exit.

"Wait."

"What is it?" she hollered without looking back.

"How do we get out of here?" She shrugged her shoulders and kept going.

Damn. She knew that she had a way out, being all celestial royalty and she knew that he didn't. Zhao rolled back his shoulders in an act to relieve stress. Well then, he'd just have to follow her out of here whether they liked it or not.

There had to be a way out, it wasn't as if the Ocean Spirit dropped them into a bowl and all they were doing was walking circles around each other. Surely not, right?

"Oh gods." The answer to everything just struck him and he craned his neck upwards in sheer horror. The nerve of that Avatar!

"Yue!"

"What?!"

"I'M A FISH, PRINCESS! A GODDAMNED FISH!!"


End file.
